The Unitarian Fellowship of Peterborough

This story tells of Lola, a little girl who believes she is too small to go to school. Her older brother, Charlie, helps her to see it in another way. 

 

 

Have you ever had one of those experiences when it seems that around every corner there is something calling you to pay attention to one particular thing? I’ve seen this used in movies... when the main character needs to, say, make a difficult phone call, and everywhere they turn there is a larger-than-life telephone nearly ringing off the hook.

 

Well, this morning’s service, or at least the call we’re answering today, the call of ‘story’, comes out of such an experience. I think it all started about a year ago when I attended a meeting of the Peterborough Storytellers at the library, and I found that about half of the people participating were Unitarians. Story matters to us.

 

It continued when a few folks here at the Fellowship expressed a desire for more ‘story’ in the context of worship...more storytelling...more story as analogy. 

 

It continued further when I attended the UU Ministers’ Convo in November where the theme was “Tell a tell, touch a life, transform the world.” 

And still it continued, when I picked up the book that the daytime book club is reading, “A Fair Country” by John Ralston Sauls, and found that the introduction was titled, “The Power of Story.” 

 

Then last week, I opened my weekly email from the Alban Institute, a congregational resource center, and found that the topic was “Pastor as Narrative Leader.”

 

Alright. Alright, I said. I’ll pay attention to story. And sure enough, I found it to be a very helpful way to think about this “State of the Fellowship” address. What is the story of this congregation? How does it reinforce what we do well, or keep us stuck in patterns that are not so helpful? How might we re-author this story to better serve our mission?

 

So, let me tell you a little bit about story, or narrative therapy, and its premises (and I don’t mean to imply that you need therapy!) “Stories reflect our unique interpretation of our world of experience. The stories we tell represent the single most powerful tool we have for focusing energy and achieving our goals.”[1] The theory is that the stories we tell, and the stories we believe...about ourselves, our communities, our nation...are self-fulfilling prophecies. We create these stories out of our experiences and what we’ve been told, but to use them to our advantage, we need to stay cognizant of the stories we tell, and be willing to re-author them when necessary.  

 

For children, their personal stories are highly influenced by what they’re told. This is something I think about almost every time I’m in the locker room at the Y, because there I overhear an incredible variety of interactions between mothers and their children. Just Thursday, I heard a mother telling her daughter that she ‘forgets everything’...and no matter what the daughter’s excuse or explanation, the mother’s reply was, “that’s because you forget everything.” And so she will continue forgetting. On another day, I was in awe of a mother who was obviously under a great deal of time pressure, but didn’t allow that to stop her from giving her two little ones repeated positive affirmations about how much they were helping, and how good they were at getting ready for swimming class. They will grow up believing they are competent and helpful.

 

This also applies to what we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves we are stupid, or fat, or smart, or lucky, or the one who never wins, and likely this is the story we continue to create. Because we’re drawn to reinforcing our stories, we tend to ignore or devalue the events and voices and experiences that don’t fit into that dominant narrative. This is true whether the story we tell is empowering or disempowering, positive or negative. We reinforce the stories we believe. 

 

Therapy or counselling can make use of the narrative approach particularly well when we have ‘problem-saturated’ stories... stories that reinforce being stuck, or being wrong. And the goal of narrative therapy is to shift to a new perspective, allowing us to see an alternative story or outcome.   One effective way to do this is to separate the identified problem from the person. The saying goes, “The person is not the problem. The problem is the problem.” To give an example from our particular context, our story is saturated with a ‘not enough resources’ problem. We could even give this problem a name like, oh, I don’t know, Shorty Fall, or Nary Nuff. We can better engage in discussion about how to deal with Shorty and Nary if we know they are not ‘us’. We can then look at the problem without blaming ourselves or anyone else. Shorty and Nary are the problem that we together can solve. 

 

In his book, “The Power of Story”, Jim Loehr asks, in what areas of our life is it clear that we cannot achieve our goals with the story we’ve got? If our congregational story says we don’t have enough, then there’s no point in moving toward any goals that require more of us. If our story says that we are white and intellectual, then it becomes difficult for our circle to include anyone who identifies as anything other than that.   If our story says we know everyone here and that we are like family, then newcomers feel like outsiders. I love the piece of history that Ben Taylor has been known to tell, about Rev. Orfald arriving on the scene to find a group of people who couldn’t sing Spirit of Life if their lives depended on it. But Anne started telling a different story. She believed that this congregation could sing, and now, fifteen years later, we can, and we have a vibrant music program. 

 

So what is the story of this congregation?   I have been blessed over the last few years in hearing Ann Jex tell our story maybe about ten times. Ann is one of the founding members of this congregation. She has graciously taken part in new member classes by sharing the history of this Fellowship. Here is a short version of the story I’ve heard:

 

Once upon a time there was a conservative community called Peterborough. Hardly a liberal was in sight. But a minister from Toronto knew better, and he called a meeting, bringing a few religious free-thinkers together to talk about starting a Unitarian fellowship. They agreed to try, and in about six months, had found enough interested people to be granted a charter from the American Unitarian Association. (Well, actually, they were one person short of the 15 required, but they got special dispensation.)  

 

Over the next thirty years or so, they grew to about thirty members, with about as many children. They met in each others homes and then in different public settings. The tasks were many and the people few, so they rotated jobs. It was hard work and they often felt like quitting. One member in particular, Mary Young, wouldn’t hear of giving up, and kept the Fellowship going. Still, they always seemed to be at least one member short.

But the group had vision. They saved their money in hopes of buying a building some day. They adopted the ‘yew’ as their symbol, because it is evergreen, hardy, thrives in adversity and is long living. 

 

Several members were active in the greater community and under their own power, pulled other members of the Fellowship into service. Still, they didn’t grow.

 

They had a visioning workshop and decided they wanted to call a part time minister. Providentially, Anne Orfald was just graduating from seminary and looking for a part time settlement. Shortly after they called Anne, they also bought a building and the congregation began to grow. Little by little, more people came; they bought hymnals and began to sing together; the community embraced a larger sense of family and pride. And then the ground shifted. They outgrew the little church. Rev. Anne retired. They had to look for a new minister, and also a new place to meet. A building committee searched high and low for a new space. A ministerial search committee searched high and low for a new minister. Eventually they found both...and...and they lived happily ever after??

 

Now, if this is truly the story we have ingested...the story we believe about this community...the story that we know and tell...then we would think of ourselves as indeed evergreen and hardy...we would know that the actions of determined individuals have made a huge difference in the continuing presence of this community...we would know that we are survivors and thrivers. 

 

I was moved to tears, as I’m sure many of you were, when watching the news this week. One story from Haiti showed the people marching through the streets and singing. The news report said they were singing for those who had died, and singing in gratitude to be alive. They were singing the story of who they are and who they want to be....people who are able to face hardship by working together and helping one another...people who imagine a brighter future. 

 

Certainly to a lesser degree, because I mean to take nothing away from the magnitude of the tragedy in Haiti, but this ‘singing in the streets’ might describe what I experienced when I first arrived here. You were in the throes of survivor fatigue. You were exhausted from three years of chaos and upheaval...the earth of certainty and normalcy had moved beneath your feet, yet you were singing a song of survival, gratitude and celebration. That passion for the life of this community was part of the reason I came to Peterborough. Your passion for and commitment to the Unitarian Fellowship continues to be germane to our story. 

 

But there is another story too....one that is both spoken and felt...one that can be heard in the subtext of our history. This is our ‘problem-saturated’ story, the place in our narrative where we are stuck. It tells of how we are always a few people short. It tells of too much work for too few people, of how the same folks repeatedly show up to do the work and eventually burn out. The story says that it is difficult to find people to serve on the Board and some committees struggle to be effective. It tells of a community that has dreams bigger than its wallets and other resources. This is a true story. 

 

But we live in a postmodernist age, in a time when we know that multiple stories are true, and that our realities are multi-layered. All of these stories are true. Ours is a story of struggle and exhaustion. Ours is also a story of survival and success. Ours is a story of some tensions and disagreements. Ours is also a story of a joyful community that is open and warm and that loves to laugh. Ours is a story of individual social justice activists who have not succeeded at garnering the support of the whole congregation. Ours is also a story of a gathering of people who are passionate about social change and who believe that this community can make a difference. So, which of these stories are we going to swallow? Which ones are we going to tell? 

 

A review of “A Fair Country”, the book I mentioned earlier, suggests that Sauls is engaged in conscious myth-building...that is, that he is working to create a foundational national story that Canada will ingest and operate out of. Sauls insists that the ‘myth’ he is building is based in fact, but facts that we have forgotten, so that what he is doing is more like re-claiming or re-authoring the story. This is, I believe, what James Luther Adams is trying to achieve in the reading we did together earlier. He is writing a story of the church he not only believes we are, but also of the church that we can be....a free church that is on a great adventure of the spirit. 

 

I’m not suggesting that we be dishonest or that we manufacture a community story that is not based in reality. Rather, I am suggesting that along with facing our challenges, we allow ourselves to see the myriad resources and possibilities that exist. It is out of these possibilities that we can build the future of this Fellowship. As I was working on this message, I went back and reviewed the large packet you prepared five years ago to tell your story to a potential new minister. You wanted to present the congregation in a positive light, so it identifies challenges but then turns and focuses on the many strengths of the congregation. It says, we’ve had our problems but we know how to survive because we are committed. This is our story. 

 

Step back, or get on the balcony, and take a broader view. Get a different perspective. For example, rather than seeing that we are over-extended, see that we are a congregation that understands that depending too heavily on a few volunteers is neither just nor sustainable. So now, we have instituted a ‘pod’ system to spread out the Sunday tasks more broadly, and we are willing to let positions sit vacant when no one is inspired to fill them. 

Or, another example. Yes, we are a congregation that experiences a gap between dreams and resources. So, one of the questions we asked (and will ask again today) in the community conversations was about how to shrink that gap. One wise response was that whatever the action taken, we shouldn’t ever shrink our dreams.   The new perspective gained is that we are a congregation who dreams big, and who is learning to recognize that a gap is simply an indication of how much we want to achieve. Having Shorty and Nary around can remind us of the size of our dreams and goals. 

 

So, what is the State of this Fellowship? I believe that we are poised on the edge of great change. We are identifying those parts of our story that keep us stuck in problems. We are re-authoring our story to be one of a community unafraid to face challenges together, and willing to dream big together. We know how to sing a story of love and inclusivity, of a free church that bursts into newness with joy. We are a community on a great adventure together, and I, for one, look forward to what’s going to happen in the next chapter, because I’ve come to love all the characters here.

Blessed be each of you.

Amen. 

 

 

 

---